Why Should You Promote Old Blog Posts?

Being Boss is my favourite podcast. Recently, Kathleen and Emily spoke about how we should write about what we know. Then we should share that knowledge with our community. This is something I plan to start doing more of with this online space, but to clue you up a bit more, here’s a brief introduction.

I’ve worked in the Digital Marketing industry for five years. The backlog of skills I’ve gained in this time is something I’m proud of. So soon on A Branch of Holly, you’ll start to see more posts around the topic of digital marketing. I know this content will be quite specific, and I apologise if I put some readers off. But I also know how beneficial the topics I’m going to write about will be to you all.

Running an online space is the core of digital marketing and plenty of businesses know it (source). When someone searches for a business or blog in your industry, you want to appear at the top. You do that by utilising your online space and making the most of the tools available.

Along the way I’ve taught myself a lot. I know what works and what doesn’t. Today marks the start of me sharing all of my secrets with you.

I know you read loads of blogging advice articles, but trust me – this isn’t going to be one of those. In this post, I’m not going to tell you how to promote old blog posts. Like the headline says, I’m going to talk with you about why it’s important to do so. I want to encourage you to keep learning in the creation and growth of your online space. So let’s get going.

How long do you think it takes you to create a blog post? Start from the initial idea to sharing it on your social media channels. Then include the planning, photography, writing, editing and distribution.

It’s probably a long time isn’t it?

I can be completely honest in this community and say that I work very hard on each blog post I create. The aim of this online space isn’t to publish boring content that’s 200 words long. Its aim is to inspire and interact. I do that by putting a lot of effort in, and I’m sure you do exactly the same with your blog. So it makes sense that due to the work we put in, we should promote everything as much as we can, right?

Well yes, but it’s surprising how many bloggers don’t do this. Myself included up until a certain point.

A recent post on Jennypurr described how self-promotion shouldn’t feel uncomfortable. She said: “Self-promotion doesn’t have to be uncomfortable if you believe in what you’re sharing with the world.” I do understand the fear of self-promotion. I also understand bloggers who feel their content should stay in their archives. But if you wrote a blog post last year that you love, why not share the hell out of it? Today, I’m sharing some big reasons with you about why promoting old blog posts is so important.

They’re Too Good To Ignore

The effort that goes into each post is the main reason why they shouldn’t just be ignored. That amazing piece of content you created last week that engaged with so many people, wasn’t just active for one day. If it’s going to be useful to your community all the time, you should continue to promote it.

Now I don’t mean go shouting from the rooftops saying “Hey guys! Check out this post I created 10 months ago! It’s so cool!” That’s not the way it works. But it does work if it’s done in a more subtle way. This can be done through a little something called internal linking.

This image is a screen shot from my recent blog post on How To Have A Productive Work Day. You see in the image how one sentence is a different colour? That’s an internal link to that article.

You don’t need to put the title as your anchor text, which is what I’ve just done in the above paragraph. It can be anything you want as long as it’s relevant and makes sense.

Say you were writing a post about what gifts you can get your bridesmaids. In the past, you did a DIY tutorial of something that would be perfect as one of these presents. You can write a paragraph about it and say: “It’s so easy to make – just check out my step by step tutorial in this post.” That right there is an internal link.

Internal linking to old content is also great for SEO purposes. Just read all the positives in this article on Search Engine Land - (source).

But don’t worry – I’m not going into this now, because it’s a whole other ball game! I’m planning on doing a series about it soon so stay tuned for that.

It Helps Your Traffic

I know a lot of bloggers don’t like obsessing over their numbers. But unfortunately we can’t ignore them completely. And promoting old blog posts is a great way to keep those figures going up.

Google loves analysing pages. That’s how it determines whether your site is good or not. And the more pages you have the better. Each of your blog posts counts as a page. Therefore the more you promote your pages (or posts), the more text Google can analyse. This means the higher your SEO performance will be. Does that make sense? So there’s no harm in keeping all your old blog posts active every so often by promoting them.

They’re Useful For New Followers

There are a few blogs in my feed that I completely adore. So much so that I went all the way back through their archives when I first came across them. That’s why I love it when some bloggers do a “From The Archives” tweet that links back to an old blog post. Especially seeing as it’s still relevant today. Here's one I did earlier...

One of my aims with A Branch of Holly is to create evergreen content.

This is content that lasts all year every year, for as long as this blog exists. So you won’t have found a blog post about “The Dress” here, because next month it’ll be irrelevant. That’s what is called a time-sensitive piece of content – it comes with an expiry date. Content is great when it’s still relevant months after it was first published. So it wouldn’t work tweeting six months down the line saying: “[from the archives] What Colour Really Is This Dress?” – because people will have forgotten all about it.

But a new follower could be on Twitter and notice you’ve tweeted an old blog post about improving photography. They’re much more likely to click through and read this, which keeps your content and site active.

If you made it to the end of this post, I hope you are now encouraged to fill your Buffer schedules with links to old blog posts. Remember that this isn’t something you have to obsess over. It’s something you can do naturally. All with the aim of giving each piece of your content the credibility it deserves.

I'd love to know, what do you think are the benefits of promoting old blog posts?

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